For both Sesame Workshop and its newly-appointed executive director for Indian operations, Sashwati Banerjee, India is a big challenge. The US-based Sesame Workshop might have revolutionized pre-school education through various initiatives, including the path-breaking TV show Sesame Street, but replicating a global model here will be a tough task.
Rather, if communications expert Banerjee is to be believed, Sesame Workshop is adopting an entirely new game plan for India, apart from innovating on some aspects that incorporate what it has done in other parts of the globe. She agrees that India may become the incubator for a model that could be replicated elsewhere too.
Founded in 1968, Sesame Workshop changed television forever with the legendary Sesame Street. Today, the Workshop continues to innovate on behalf of children in 120 countries, using its proprietary research methodology to ensure its programmes and products are engaging and enriching.
For Banerjee, who’s dabbled in various assignments from India to Hong Kong to the US, the changeover to children’s education from healthcare communications is a step that was not taken easily. But after initial doubts were cleared by Sesame Workshop CEO Gary Knell, it has been hectic work for the lady who grew up and studied in Delhi, but spent quite a few years in Hong Kong doing “this and that”, as she would modestly say.
In this conversation with Indiantelevision.com’s Anjan Mitra, Banerjee spells out her priorities and gives a glimpse into Workshop’s plans for India. She also cribs a bit on procedural delays and lack of readily available comprehensive data/research on government-aided education initiatives and child behaviour.
Excerpts:
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What’s the aim of setting up Sesame Workshop India? |
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How will that be done? The target audience is children aged between two to six years and their caregivers, which include parents and teachers using educational materials that are fun and make learning engaging “because all children deserve a chance to dream and discover, to understand the world and their place in it, to reach their highest potential…” We would be working with other organizations that are already active in this field and our mandate is to help them develop programmes that will take such initiatives forward. |
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How would Sesame Workshop leverage Galli Galli…? Moreover, research has shown that children who watch Sesame Street or its various local versions in countries round the globe are better prepared for school in terms of cognitive learning and the show has helped prevent children from dropping out of school. |
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When is Galli Galli Sim Sim likely to make its debut on Cartoon Network and Pogo? |
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How is Sesame Workshop funding its initiatives in India? |
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When Indiantelevision.com spoke to Sesame CEO Gary Knell, he had said corporate houses too would be roped in for funding activities. Has any development taken place in this regard? However, we’d like to tap big corporate houses for funds as part of a corporate’s social responsibilities. There are quite a few business houses that are involved in educational initiatives and we’ll look at partnering with them in various ways. |
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What role would the Indian government play in Sesame’s scheme of things? What are those few things that Sesame must consider as it goes forward? Briefly, the discussions were participative and each government department and agency, professional educational bodies, and the voluntary sector brought their own set of issues to the fore providing for comprehensive inputs towards future planning and strategy. In fact, there was a consensus around the fact that the media can help overcome constraints posed by the existing administrative structures across the country, which are highly segmented. We are hoping to work with diverse partners, develop and create innovative materials and build capacity at all levels. Our vision is to reach as many children as possible in India by partnering with government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan or Universal Education programme with material that will make learning joyful and help the government in reaching its educational objectives. |
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Considering Turner International India had provided the money for a corpus, what would be its role? |
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Is the telecast deal with Turner exclusive or can it be done with other broadcasters in other Indian languages too? Generally, Sesame Workshop works with the public service broadcaster of the country concerned, but there had been some initial problems with Doordarshan, which, I am told, have been sorted out now by Turner India. India is a vast country and getting educational initiatives in all the local languages would not be possible. But we would certainly be exploring at least one South Indian language, if not two, apart from Hindi. The details haven’t yet been worked out and would be done in consultation with Turner. |
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Will the Indian ops undertake merchandising activities too? |
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How are such merchandising activities done elsewhere in the world? |
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How is the revenue generated from such activities used and what will be the game plan for India? |
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How important is India as a market for Sesame? While Early Childhood Care and Education is definitely a felt need and lot of efforts have been put in by the government and private institutions, other issues like malnutrition and child heath take precedence for ICDS. Demand has never been an issue in education. Supply is what we need to focus on. |
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Does Sesame Workshop feel that the Indian regulatory environment requires too many procedural clearances impeding quick start of operations? However, India is a test case for Sesame Workshop as it is uniquely ahead of most developing countries in terms of market and economy and the size of population. More importantly, India is not a donor funded country as sizeable infrastructure is being built by Indians. Then in India, we are not working primarily with the terrestrial broadcaster, unlike in other countries. We do hope that the time block on DD will continue airing Galli Galli… for a long time to come. I don’t see Galli Galli… broadcasting in 22 Indian languages. What we can do is to take the essence of educational initiatives and roll it out in outreach that can happen in multiple languages. In those terms, India is a learning experience for Sesame to see what kind of partnerships work best and how sustainable models can be built up for impact in a country that is culturally and linguistically diverse. |
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